1492 eBook

Our mariners ran to make sail. But the long boat
waited for some final word that they said was going
ashore. Terreros would take it. We were
so close that we saw the yet watching crowd, wharf
and water side, and the sun glinting upon Ovando’s
order-keeping soldiery. The Admiral called me
to him. I read the letter to the Governor, Terreros
would deliver to our old officer, probably waiting
on the wharf to see us quite away. The letter—­there
was naught in it but the sincerest, gravest warning
that a hurricane was at hand. A great one; he
knew the signs. It might strike this shore late
to-morrow or the next day or the next. Wherefore
he begged his Excellency the Governor to tarry the
fleet’s sailing. Let it wait at least three
days and see if his words came not true! Else
there would be scattering of ships and destruction—­and
he rested his Excellency’s servant. El Almirante.

Terreros went, delivered that letter, and returned
to the Juana. And our sails were made
and our anchors lifted, and it was sunset and clear
and smooth, and every palm frond of San Domingo showed.
Eighteen ships in harbor, and fifteen, they said,
going to Spain, and around and upon them all bustle
of preparation. One saw in fancy Bobadilla and
Roldan and Gwarionex and the much gold, including that
piece of virgin ore weighing five thousand castellanos.
Fifteen ships preparing for Spain, and San Domingo,
of which the Adelantado had laid first stone, and
a strange, green, sunset sky. And the Consolacion,
the Margarita, the Juana and the San Sebastian
away to the west, to the sound of music, for the Admiral
cried to our musicians, “Play, play in God’s
name!”

Night passed. Morning broke. So light was
the wind that the shore went by slowly. There
gathered an impatience. “If we must to
Jamaica, what use in following every curve of Hispaniola
that is forbid us?” At noon the wind almost
wholly failed, then after three hours of this rose
with a pouncing suddenness to a good breeze.
We rounded a point thronged with palms. Before
us a similar point, and between the two that bent
gently each to the other, slept a deep and narrow
bight. “Enter here,” said the Admiral.

We anchored. There was again a strange sunset,
green and gold in the lower west, but above an arc
of clouds dressed in saffron and red. And now
we could hear, though from very far off, a deep and
low murmur, and whether it was the forest or the sea
or both we did not know. But now all the old
mariners said there would be storm, and we were glad
of the little bay between the protecting horns.
The Admiral named it Bay of Comfort. The ConsolacionMargarita, Juana, San Sebastian,
lay under bare masts, deep within the bight.

The next day, an hour before noon, arrived that king
hurricane.

They are known now, these storms of Europe’s
west and Asia’s east. Take all our Mediterranean
storms and heap them into one!